[Discussion] So, Heat Maps still not working as intended?
- Thread starter Marc_Hicks
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further trouble is that, once one manages to arrive at a 'geological' site, it's completely nerfed... cabon only. needle crystals, fragments, clusters, piceous, all giving only carbon. the planetary features generation system has been totally trashed with odyssey... and don't even get me going about all the ridiculous poi's literally everwhere in the bally galaxy.
'very unhappy explorer here!
'very unhappy explorer here!
What I see in-game is definitely not a "one shade of blue" It's at least 3 shades of blue and I can't be entirely sure which one means more stuff. My guess is the brighter one. Tried landing on a terraformable HMC one with geo sites. They aren't really "sites" anymore, not in the same sense they were in Horizons. They seem to be much better masked in landscape, and clusters are smaller, making them much harder to see from above. So I touched down and rolled out an SRV, and wave scanner did pick something up. Things like iron lava spouts and sulphur dioxide fumaroles were wedged between rocks, so night vision didn't help much to locate them.
About "Carbon only". Ones I found gave only iron, so it's probably a widespread problem.
About "Carbon only". Ones I found gave only iron, so it's probably a widespread problem.
State of the art in the 33rd century!
3 days of searching and the number of geological locations I have found remains at "zero". So, to be clear, in order to make the heat-map less "confusing", the Devs instead decided to make it borderline USELESS instead. I also find it interesting how no mention of Heat Map "confusion" ever came up during those very lengthy Alpha Feedback threads. Meanwhile, all the stuff that got mentioned FREQUENTLY on those threads (like getting a Stealth Suit and electronic lock-pick, improving on-foot exploration game-play, getting Emotes, changing the way we enter and leave ships, and being able to loot dead NPC's) all got ignored.
Prior to Odyssey I found it daft finding 20+ vents all together then nothing else on the planet, it just didn't make sense. The heat maps for "Geological" look more correct to me because it's telling you the "possible" locations where these might be found, not the exact location. if you look close at the heat map, look for the one that has a larger patch of green in it. In this screen shot by Drelthar you can see loads of greeny blue areas e.g. the section in the middle where the round cursor is.
Once you are down on the planet it's up to you "the explorer" to find the vents etc. either flying low to the ground, srv or even foot. The places I've seen them are more obvious than in EDH, in EDH they were just "patches" in the middle of nowhere. Now look for lava vents etc, near where mountains / rocky areas are for example.... e.g. Explore!
For the filter, where you see vent, geysers and lava spouts you might think all 3 filters look the same, we'll that's mainly because they are, you can find all 3 of these items scattered in the same areas. Not a patch of geysers, then 10km away a patch of vents etc.
Once you are down on the planet it's up to you "the explorer" to find the vents etc. either flying low to the ground, srv or even foot. The places I've seen them are more obvious than in EDH, in EDH they were just "patches" in the middle of nowhere. Now look for lava vents etc, near where mountains / rocky areas are for example.... e.g. Explore!
For the filter, where you see vent, geysers and lava spouts you might think all 3 filters look the same, we'll that's mainly because they are, you can find all 3 of these items scattered in the same areas. Not a patch of geysers, then 10km away a patch of vents etc.
The lighter and darker shades of blue are just a consequence of the terrain they're covering, it means absolutely nothing with regard to the density of biological and geological phenomena, disappointingly. So, this isn't really a "heat map" as there are no varying levels of heat. Not sure what to call it instead.
I spent nearly three hours searching. It was an unusual landscape I have to say, with a broad plain with many isolated tall conical mountains and amongst them some looked like extinct volcanoes. I did think that searching around this lot would produce some fumaroles at least but no luck. In the end I tried another system and found an ice world with a single biological, landed and got 3 samples within 20 minutes. Deploying a composition scanner on the ship/ srv worked very well in that case.
I call it, the "cop out overlay"
What a complete load of nonsense. I was no fan of having Geological/Biological PoI's turning up in the Nav Panel, and was happy to hear they had moved to a Heat Map system. As was previewed in Alpha, it would have been great, as the colour would reflect where you were most likely to find these features (no overlay=nothing; blue-green=low probability; orange-red=high probability). The overlay they gave us at launch is only a very marginal improvement to the MkI Eyeball approach we had pre-update 3.3.
Oh, & no I don't believe their claims that the heat map was removed due to "confusion". Just reeks of to me.
I agree with the text and tone of this thread - 'heatmaps' (loosely called) are useless.
I'm really not getting FD's direction with Odyssey. Not content to simply add cool features (e.g. legs), they set about changing a bunch of stuff that players were accustomed to and which worked - the UI and now it seems mapping of planets with a 'heatmap' that doesn't show squat. I'm not even going to go down the Odyssey VR track which is shameful.
I'm a tolerant person but these and other issues are really starting to get up my nose! It's like the death of a thousand cuts, no sooner do you find something that's really good with Odyssey (e.g. planet tech and lighting), you then come across something that's really dumb. The heatmap is a good example. Lovely planet view obscured with a bland blue blanket that adds nothing. Sure I can change back to combat mode and enjoy the ride down, but you'd think mapping a planet would provide some useful info and at least could be toggled. I've found plenty of biologicals in the deep, but only by skimming the surface so they 'pop in' which is a real time sink.
EDIT: I should apologise to FD as further testing of the heatmap mechanic by me has been somewhat useful. So SORRY FD. Below are some recent screenies of two planets. The first (top image) had one biological and the heatmap reflects this. The remaining screenshots show a planet with multiple biologicals and the changes to the heatmap for some of the different varieties.
I'm really not getting FD's direction with Odyssey. Not content to simply add cool features (e.g. legs), they set about changing a bunch of stuff that players were accustomed to and which worked - the UI and now it seems mapping of planets with a 'heatmap' that doesn't show squat. I'm not even going to go down the Odyssey VR track which is shameful.
I'm a tolerant person but these and other issues are really starting to get up my nose! It's like the death of a thousand cuts, no sooner do you find something that's really good with Odyssey (e.g. planet tech and lighting), you then come across something that's really dumb. The heatmap is a good example. Lovely planet view obscured with a bland blue blanket that adds nothing. Sure I can change back to combat mode and enjoy the ride down, but you'd think mapping a planet would provide some useful info and at least could be toggled. I've found plenty of biologicals in the deep, but only by skimming the surface so they 'pop in' which is a real time sink.
EDIT: I should apologise to FD as further testing of the heatmap mechanic by me has been somewhat useful. So SORRY FD. Below are some recent screenies of two planets. The first (top image) had one biological and the heatmap reflects this. The remaining screenshots show a planet with multiple biologicals and the changes to the heatmap for some of the different varieties.
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it seems the stock answer was (during Alpha) the full tech is not implemented yet, don't worry it will be fine on release, clearly, nearly everything is broken and bug-riddled on release
It was one of the last pieces of tech they were working on, along with skies and was not implemented in the alpha.
There are currently two types of Geo tech implemented at present.
1. Lava Vents, Fumeroles and Vents:
This type includes vents that, when active, are deadly. You can usually pick out the the vents by tracking the materials on your scanner. When flying down to a blue target area, switch modes to see the landscape. Look for the pimples that indicate volcanic features on flat landscapes, or for rough patches. They will normally be dormant, but wait long enough and they switch. Watch out for vents. If you wait beside a dormant vent, nothing happens. If the vent becomes active, the temperature will increase to over 1000k - you will die!
2. Geysers and Vents:
Like the other type, they can be found by tracking mats with your scanner and they tend to be everywhere. Drive for a few minutes and follow the scanner. Like the other type, they are more often dormant than not and go through a cycle (periods and reasoning not yet figured out.)
There are confirmed issues:
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/37839 - Geological Materials all of one type. Add you experience and vote. You get your higher grade mats from Mesosiderate and Metalic Meteorites.
And stuff that needs confirmation
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/37326 - Outgassing is visible through geometry
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/36431 - System map does not accurately reflect what you see on scan or on the ground.
There are currently two types of Geo tech implemented at present.
1. Lava Vents, Fumeroles and Vents:
This type includes vents that, when active, are deadly. You can usually pick out the the vents by tracking the materials on your scanner. When flying down to a blue target area, switch modes to see the landscape. Look for the pimples that indicate volcanic features on flat landscapes, or for rough patches. They will normally be dormant, but wait long enough and they switch. Watch out for vents. If you wait beside a dormant vent, nothing happens. If the vent becomes active, the temperature will increase to over 1000k - you will die!
2. Geysers and Vents:
Like the other type, they can be found by tracking mats with your scanner and they tend to be everywhere. Drive for a few minutes and follow the scanner. Like the other type, they are more often dormant than not and go through a cycle (periods and reasoning not yet figured out.)
There are confirmed issues:
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/37839 - Geological Materials all of one type. Add you experience and vote. You get your higher grade mats from Mesosiderate and Metalic Meteorites.
And stuff that needs confirmation
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/37326 - Outgassing is visible through geometry
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/36431 - System map does not accurately reflect what you see on scan or on the ground.
It's not clear to me how much of this is poor implementation and how much is just broken. It looks like the distribution method has changed from geo features at specific sites to much more distributed geo features, hence the heat map is not just showing hot spots around specific sites but showing where an area where there's a higher probability of a feature occurring.
There are a few issues:
-the original heat map used colour variation but had a bad combination of colours for certain types of colour blindness so was changed to a colour density map. It's clearly not working however; it shows a wide distribution of 'probabably something' with no 'hot spots'
-distribution of material types at geological features isnt working: they are all low grade
These issues seem, at first glance, to be so simple that I cannot believe they havent been addressed. I wonder whether there's a more fundamental problem with the way features & materials are distributed. Is this connected with the acknowledged problem of disfunctional planetary tech? There's a wide distribution of averageness with anything of high value being so improbabled out of existence: is this similar to the lack of extreme canyons/mountains, I'm also reading about problems finding particular rare suit upgrade materials ('Smear Campaign' data types etc).
It would be great if FDev would give some communication on this just to confirm that this is a known issue and is being looked at.
There are a few issues:
-the original heat map used colour variation but had a bad combination of colours for certain types of colour blindness so was changed to a colour density map. It's clearly not working however; it shows a wide distribution of 'probabably something' with no 'hot spots'
-distribution of material types at geological features isnt working: they are all low grade
These issues seem, at first glance, to be so simple that I cannot believe they havent been addressed. I wonder whether there's a more fundamental problem with the way features & materials are distributed. Is this connected with the acknowledged problem of disfunctional planetary tech? There's a wide distribution of averageness with anything of high value being so improbabled out of existence: is this similar to the lack of extreme canyons/mountains, I'm also reading about problems finding particular rare suit upgrade materials ('Smear Campaign' data types etc).
It would be great if FDev would give some communication on this just to confirm that this is a known issue and is being looked at.
I think community manager guy said they're working on this because they realize it's not informative like they intended. Technically it does seem to work. I find stuff in the blurb areas and tend not to find stuff outside the blue areas. But the issue seems to be the lookup table is 0 and 1, and possibly the underlying data too. It might be nice to have at least 2 or 3 density levels under there corresponding to frequency or probability of the sites. I think that's more what people expect.
Oh, and all geo stuff seems colocalized. Which is why the geo filters don't change anything. Not sure if that is intentional. So technically it works its just that all geo filters show the same data.
The heat map was addressed and an issue was posted earlier in this thread.
The low grade issue is also in the tracker: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/37839
As it is in the vote stage - it is confirmed as a bug. You can still get high grade materials from Mesosiderite and Metallic Meteorites.
It's not clear to me how much of that is not clear!
That's my point. The heat map in Alpha-at least for Biologicals-gave an indication of both how likely you were to find the Biological at the site....and how dense that site would be (so a cooler colour would mean that, even if a Biological site was there, it might just be a handful of specimens). This new system tells me almost nothing.
FWIW I think the heatmaps are a fine approach, they just need to make sure that 1) frequency of finding the thing is actually correlated with what the heatmap tells you and 2) the heatmap is more than binary, 5 levels would be nice, more if possible. A different lookup table besides shades of blue would be nice too.
And of course the low grade mats bug needs fixed, but that's currently pretty highly upvoted and I'm certain FD is aware of it. That's likely to get fixed within a couple weeks if I had to guess, obviously the intent is not to have only sulphur there for all planets.
And of course the low grade mats bug needs fixed, but that's currently pretty highly upvoted and I'm certain FD is aware of it. That's likely to get fixed within a couple weeks if I had to guess, obviously the intent is not to have only sulphur there for all planets.